Vostrotina T.M.

Vasiljev K.F.

Vasiljeva L.I.

Sherzov A.Y.

SherzovaNI.jpg-processed

Reznik U.A.

Reznik A.V.

Bogomolov V.E.

Bogomolova M.I.

Memory code (2013)

Please, read the QR code with the help of your smartphone and watch a video. A list of QR reader apps for smart phones:

iPhone : QRReader, Qrafter

Android: QR Droid

Blackberry: Barcode Assistant

The past does not grow in a natural way, it is a product of cultural creative work.
Jan Assman. Cultural memory

German critic Jens Schröter distinguishes between three main functions of modern archives — transmission, blurring the border between personal and public and digitalisation. Modern archives are not covered with dust folders with documents and old photographs, stored in museum cabinets, never used by anyone apart from specialists. The main attribute of modern archives is the possibility to transmit data.

Nowadays our personal memories become public, they are stored at web-pages of numerous social networks instead of private family albums. Collective knowledge and memory has been long ago transformed to digital format (recall Google). But what do we do with our personal memory about the past, close relatives who passed away? QR-code which links to a portrait of a passed away close relative and a small story about him – is a code of valuable personal memory, which one can share with somebody. Personal memory, while resisting a loss, become a part of the collective digital memory.

Decoding the image from the QR-code is analogous to developing classical analog image – something, which was thought to be gone forever, suddenly reappears from nowhere, highlighting the ghostly face from the past.

There is no doubt that QR-code is not a universal nor ideal way to safe and transmit data. Someday, maybe very soon, it will disappear and the new more suited format might appear. But it also obvious that data in digital era can last forever only if it is constantly transformed from one format to another. Digital images surpass time also because of continuous reproduction (even if of a poor quality) and transmission. Memory about a person (and his photographic image) is alive as long as it is being addressed, stored with care and is drawn from time to time, thus giving a new life to images from the past.